NEWS

We got home from the Skip Barber race on Sunday night and went right back to Road America on Wednesday for the WKA Man Cup event. I was glad to see many of my friends who I hadn’t seen since May. My mom and my sister came too so I was glad to have my whole family’s support. The weather was great for racing all weekend long and our team was excited to get going.

During the winter months, I spent some time with my driving coach Steve Welk doing the Skip Barber School. I did a 3-day racing school, an advanced 2-day racing school, and two lapping sessions up at Lime Rock, Connecticut. Since I had never driven an open wheel car before, Steve had a lot to teach me. I had trouble downshifting at first but once he taught me how to left-foot brake, I started to get the hang of it. Steve was very patient with me all winter long because sometimes I was driving like a spaz. But he never gave up and he decided to enter me in my first car race ever! Me, my mom and dad, Steve, his girlfriend Allison, and his family all spent July 4th weekend in Elkhart Lake. We had an awesome time together!

Our team was really happy to have a race that was so close to home. New Jersey Motorsports Park is about a 2 hour ride from our house and it is an awesome facility. Mike Doty, Cale Wyse, and Uncle John Baio were all hoping for good results in our home state. We raced IAME Jr. and our Friday qualifying results were pretty solid.

We decided at the last minute to attend the CKI event in New Castle because Mike Doty wanted me to test a different set-up for TaG. So basically we went there without any expectations of winning or anything. My dad and I flew in very late Thursday night and actually got to the hotel at 1 am Friday morning. We were really, really tired but we knew we had a long day of practice ahead of us. Since I have missed so many school days for racing this season, my mom said “No way!” when we asked if I could attend the Thursday practice, too. So without having any track time on Thursday, this made it very difficult for Mike Doty, Cale Wyse, and Uncle John Baio to set up the kart. But if my mom calls the school even one more time this year and tells them that I have swine flu, I think she might end up in jail. Or at least DYFS will come and hunt her down.

All crammed up in my mom’s crummy car, our whole family drove out to South Bend. It was an eleven hour trip and we arrived at the hotel at 2:30 am Friday. So with just a couple of hours of sleep, we went right to the track and got to work.